


True Vengeance: The 151st Hunger Games

by darth_nell



Series: New Friends, New Enemies [1]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: 151st Hunger Games, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Careers (Hunger Games), District 2 (Hunger Games), Family Drama, Gen, Hunger Games Tributes, Hunger Games-Typical Death/Violence, POV Female Character, POV Third Person, The Capitol (Hunger Games), Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 10:42:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29883366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darth_nell/pseuds/darth_nell
Summary: There’s always more to the game than merely playing by the rules; that’s why Career districts win the Hunger Games so often. Even for them, however, nothing is ever guaranteed.
Series: New Friends, New Enemies [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1983611
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	True Vengeance: The 151st Hunger Games

###### June, 150 ADD

Firelight from the funeral pyre flickered glaringly off the faces of the crowd, bathing wet eyes in shadow, highlighting sharp cheekbones. Directly in the front, where the families of the dead tributes stood, the heat washed over Venatrix Pyke’s body, practically singeing her eyebrows. The reminder of what was lost sat like a weight in her stomach, the small blackened body of her sister, wreathed in flames when she should be wreathed in laurels, standing victorious over her fellow tributes. 

Somehow, that Eleven girl had done it instead. 

Venatrix pushed the girl out of her mind, her eyes focusing on the dancing flames of the pyre. District Two didn’t do tribute funerals like the others, or so she’d heard. No mass graves and marble headstones, no returning to the earth to be gnawed at and decomposed by insects and fungi. _We return to the stars,_ Venatrix thought numbly. 

After all, a warrior’s death deserved a warrior’s funeral. 

District Two also didn’t make volunteers like the others. Unlike the Careers of One, Three, and Four, the volunteers from Two were simply made of stronger stuff, as evidenced by their sheer number of Victors -- eleven -- and the fact that they had been the only ones to provide volunteers for the Sixth Quarter Quell. 

Granted, thanks to the Quell twist requiring all tributes to be twelve years of age, no Career had ever been expected to volunteer so early. Venatrix could hardly blame the others for chickening out. 

But Bellara wasn’t supposed to volunteer. 

Venatrix wasn’t stupid enough to think that none of the three of them -- herself, Iago, and Bellara -- would be required to volunteer. Being the children of two Victors, it was pretty much a guarantee that at least one would enter the arena. 

That was meant to be herself. Not Bellara, who was supposed to stay in the Academy and train until she was eighteen, like Venatrix had done and Iago would do. 

Venatrix shot a furtive glance at her brother, who, at sixteen years old, already stood taller than her and had for a good year. He returned her look with a small, painful smile, his eyes shimmering with unshed tears. Reaching out, she gave Iago’s hand a quick squeeze, though she quickly dropped it. Wouldn’t want to be caught showing weakness at your twelve-year-old sister’s funeral. 

She supposed it was the lure of the Quell that had drawn Bellara in. She’d always been one to laugh in the face of a challenge, to charge headfirst into a fight against someone twice her size. Skilled, too, of course; she had trained only with the best. 

Though even the best would be hard-pressed to take on an entire pack of narrow-nosed dog-like mutts; Venatrix still saw the way Bellara’s blood had spattered across their silky white fur as they ripped her apart, piece by piece, her jagged little-girl screams cutting right through the screen and into Venatrix’s heart. The sound seemed to meld with the crackle of fire in front of her, whispering in and out of her ears in a unique torment. 

Tearing her eyes from the fire, Venatrix scanned the crowd, the bowed heads and somber expressions as the district paid its respect. On the other side, the family of the male tribute, Tauren Harrion, sniffled and sobbed, Mrs. Harrion clutching onto her wife as if the world were ending. For them, it had. 

For Venatrix… 

She glanced at her mother at her other side, her chin held high despite the tragedy that had overcome them. Dagmara’s eyes were sealed shut; whatever battle she fought raged in her mind and heart alone. Next to her, her husband stood with an equally rigid rigid posture in his spine, his jaw tight as his gaze fixed unblinkingly at the flames of his youngest daughter’s pyre. The light carved deep shadows into Oberon Pyke’s face, exposing harsh lines that hadn’t quite been there before this Hunger Games season. 

The four of them remained stunningly silent as the smoke that used to be Bellara Pyke and Tauren Harrion curled high over the mountains, never to walk this earth again. 

As the fires began to die, the edges of the crowd peeled off to their homes, which, unlike her own, wouldn’t be missing a person. Venatrix pulled in a ragged breath, pushing away the prickles in her eyes that wanted to become tears. She’d have time for that later, alone in her room in the Pyke’s expansive mansion in Victor’s Village. 

That had to be some sort of sick joke. 

Soon, only embers glinted in the darkness as company for the two mourning families. Some friends and extended family members waited at the edges still, lingering for posterity, but respectively giving the Pykes and the Harrions their space. Venatrix felt the presence of her brother, her parents, more sharply than before, and in turn, the absence of her sister. Without the heat of the flames, the summer night brought with it a subtle chill, sending an unexpected shiver down her spine. 

Then it was time to go, time to leave her sister behind forever and melt back into the daily routine of their lives. The thought sent a sudden rush of anger through Venatrix’s blood. 

She felt the shift in their bodies as they moved to leave, but Venatrix remained rooted to the spot. 

“Come on, Trix,” Iago said quietly, nudging her shoulder. Still, she didn’t budge.

In her peripheral, Venatrix saw her mother shake her head, beckoning to Iago. He followed with a sigh, and they departed, leaving Oberon and Venatrix alone in front of the pile of ashes. 

It had been his job to bring her back. His only job. Again, Venatrix felt the urge to snap and rage at him, but everything that she wanted to say had already been said. A deep silence permeated the air before Oberon spoke. 

“Tomorrow morning. Be at the training center by five a.m. sharp.”

Venatrix’s head snapped to him in surprise. Her father still stared at the empty pyre, though his voice had taken on a cold, clipped tone that Venatrix found chillingly unfamiliar. “Dad--”

Oberon turned to look at her, his gaze piercing. “Next year, you are going to volunteer. It’s already been decided.”

Usually, a whole selection process went into the choosing of a volunteer; no small feat. A committee made up of the academy trainers and, more importantly, Victors, scanned through a list of eligible trainees, selecting the best based on skill and resourcefulness. And, of course, there was the selection tournament. The entire process was designed to allow Two to select the hopefuls with the best chance of winning, to prevent unselected trainees -- like Bellara, and the girl from the 140th -- from volunteering. 

She imagined it wasn’t difficult for someone of her parents’ status to convince the others to vote in her favor. 

_It’s been decided since I was born,_ Venatrix thought scathingly. But since Bellara… part of her had expected that to change. That her parents wouldn’t want to risk another kid. She supposed she’d been a fool to think that, though. _Nothing more embarrassing than your kid not making it out of the arena._

Her parents didn’t think like that. Venatrix _knew_ they didn’t. Not to say that mindset didn’t run rampant through their district; she’d heard the desperation in the voices of some of her peers at training. But her parents, they knew the horrors of the arena firsthand. She couldn’t ever imagine them relegating Bellara to an _embarrassment_. She’d been _twelve_ , for fuck’s sake. 

The look Oberon was giving her right now, though… Refusing to volunteer was simply not an option. 

Nodding curtly, Venatrix tore her gaze away from her father. She’d been preparing to volunteer ever since she was twelve years old herself, even earlier, if she were being honest. The opening age for enrollment in the academy was ten years old, but for the Pykes, training started at eight. 

Venatrix had known she’d be entering the arena for a long time. She’d just hadn’t expected it to be like this. 

____

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all! A couple things about this story, and then some announcements:
> 
> So first off, I wasn't really intending to start posting this story yet; however, I've got these characters on the brain and they just really want to get out. Haha. The other thing about this... so unlike with the previous two fics in the series so far, none of this is prewritten. I want to try my hand at posting-as-you-go, and since I keep thinking about this particular story, I thought I might try that here. Unfortunately, this means that the update schedule will be incredibly sporadic, very much unlike how I did things with Widow's Bite, so uh. Sorry in advance ;-; But it's gonna be fun, I promise ! I have a general idea of where I want to go with this story (as well as its outcomes), though many things will probably end up being written as I go, which will be a fun experiment !
> 
> Anyways, a couple of announcements: I have not forgotten about our dear old friend from the 168th Hunger Games, and I have plenty in store for them... I am currently also writing the events of the 168th Victory Tour (which is...I would like to say more than halfway done. It's ended up being a Lot longer than I thought it would be ;-; ) and I hope to start posting that this month. I'll be posting that with a backlog, unlike this one, so it will have regular updates. I also plan on continuing after the events of year 168, so look forward to that ! (Also, unfortunately, the 168th tour is going to have some major spoilers for this story, but. Alas. Oh well.)
> 
> But yeah, in the meantime, I hope you enjoyed this little introduction to the main POV character, Venatrix Pyke and the rest of her family, dead or alive lol. There are a couple of other POV's I might explore over the course of this, but we'll see how that goes! Feel free to let me know what you think of this so far! I know it's fairly short, but I'm taking the quality over quantity route here lol. (Other chapters to follow may also be on the short side, depending on how much my brain feels like spitting out that day lmao.)
> 
> (Also remind me to set this to be at the end of the chapter instead of the end of the work once I update this lol...)


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